Chandramani Devi or Chandra Devi – Mother of Sri Ramakrishna. Born in Sarati Mayapur village of Arambagh. Daughter of Nandakishore Banerjee and Harabilasini Devi and married at the age of 8 to Kshudiram Chattopadhyay, his second wife. Excessively kind, would give away her own food to a chance visitor. Due to over-simplicity could never keep a secret. After two sons and one daughter conceived the Master at the age of 45. At that time one day, being aware of an effulgence emanating from the Shiva temple of the Jugis that was adjacent to her residence and entering her body, she lost consciousness out of fear. Had also had a vision of Goddess Lakshmi once on the occasion of Lakshmi Puja. Her youngest daughter born three years after the Master’s birth and she was widowed three years after that. At the age of 66 lost her elder son Ramkumar and her second son Rameshwar when she was at Dakshineswar with the Master. There she lived on the ground floor of the Kuthibari in a room overlooking the Ganga. After the untimely death of Akshay, her grandson, in that room, she lived on the upper floor of the Nahabat. Spent her last twelve years at Dakshineswar and died on the Master’s lunar birthday, 13.2.1877. On the eve of her death when her body had been partly immersed in the Ganga according to custom, the Master, grasping her feet, had exclaimed tearfully, “Who are you Mother dear, you who bore me in your womb … you are not a commonplace mother” (Srima Darshan, 3.208, 2.63, 4.64). At the Master’s behest his nephew Ramlal performed the obsequies of Chandramani Devi and also the last religious rites for the departed soul. The Master who attempted to offer oblations to his mother’s departed soul failed to do so as the water trickled through his fingers. At his behest Holy Mother performed the ceremony of offerings to the manes at Gaya in March 1890. Reports of the extraordinary life led by the Master as a spiritual aspirant at Dakshineswar having reached his mother she had been in deep anguish. Contrived to have him return to her and subsequently got him married hoping that would cure him of his “insanity”.